Jack's Story

Despite their extensive life experience, none of the Pencils have ever been involved with a franchise. However, their long time companion and Head Roadie Jack 'The Jackal' Jackman was owner of a franchise of 'The Sound Shack' back in the early eighties. This is his story.

A self-confessed technology freak and electronics wiz with management experience, Jack was the ideal man to take on a franchise like this. He had an instant advantage and he knew it. With a franchise The Jackal didn't have to worry about establishing his company name as it was already well known and he would benefit from all the advertising paid for by the parent company. Add to this the free staff training provided by the Sound Shack organisation and The Jackal new he was on to a winner. He may be a big hairy rocker but when it comes to business, he'll minimise his risks as much as the next man!

Anyway, things ran fairly smoothly for a couple of years and The Jackal was coining it in! But then there was a change of management in the parent company and things took a turn for the worse for Jack.

Immediately, the new management started changing the product range. Rather than stocking the high quality sound rigs that The Jackal was providing they decided to stock cheap European keyboards and poor quality speakers as their main product range. The Jackal wasn't very impressed by this and refused to lower the standards in his store to cater to the mass music market. He was a high quality specialist and wanted to stay that way. Shortly after this came the second blow. The new franchisor was demanding a higher royalty payment from all of it's franchisees. Previously, as with all franchises, The Jackal had been giving a fair slice of his profits to the parent company but now they were asking for too much! The Sound Shack Group's response was to threaten The Jackal with taking away his franchise unless he paid the increased royalties and towed the company line.

By this stage, The Jackal was thoroughly fed up with his inability to make key business decisions himself. His hands were being tied by the parent company and he wanted out! The Jackal knew he'd need the parent company's permission to sell his business so he set about buttering them up. It took some doing as he was not popular for his refusal to do as he was told over the new product line but he managed to convince them that it was in The Sound Shacks' best interests for him to sell. He finally sold out to one "Rocky Flame" for a reduced price and a job as a roadie for the Pencils. Rocky promptly forgot about this new business as he has so many others and to this day the old Music store lies abandoned and derelict, a lasting testimony to the bombing accuracy of pigeons.